Kerry-Lynne Findlay resigned as leader of the British Columbia Conservative party on Sunday, capping a five-day collapse that has cut the Official Opposition’s caucus roughly in half and revived talk of an early provincial election.
Findlay said in a statement that “too much of our time and attention has been consumed by internal conflict” and that she would not let a fight over her leadership become “a continuing distraction from the work British Columbians need,” according to The Canadian Press. She added that she has made decisions she “would make differently with the benefit of hindsight” and takes responsibility for how the party’s turmoil unfolded.
The resignation came four days after Findlay told reporters at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention that she was “not going anywhere,” a defiant stance she repeated even as two MLAs asked her to step down at an emergency caucus meeting earlier in the week, canadanewsmedia.ca reported Sept. 18. That meeting followed revelations that a private investigator, hired by a since-fired party executive director, had been retained to look into sitting Conservative MLAs, the party’s former president and a legislature reporter, in an apparent effort to unmask a social media critic.
The party’s caucus, which held 44 seats after forming the Official Opposition in the 2024 election, has fallen to roughly two dozen sitting members, according to The Canadian Press and Global News, whose counts differed slightly amid the fast-moving departures. John Rustad, the party’s former leader, along with Trevor Halford and Claire Rattée, were removed from caucus Friday, and Surrey-Serpentine River MLA Linda Hepner quit Sunday. Eight of the departed members, led by former Conservative Peter Milobar, have joined a new centrist party called CentreBC, formed earlier this year out of disaffected members of the old BC United party.
One name on that list stands out beyond the caucus math. Delta South MLA Ian Paton, who told reporters in late August that RCMP officers wanted to interview him over his allegation that Findlay had offered him a paid advisory role in exchange for giving up his seat so she could run in a byelection, is now among the eight MLAs sitting with CentreBC. Findlay denied the allegation and called it categorically false. Her resignation removes her need for a seat swap, but neither party has said whether the RCMP file on Paton’s complaint remains open.
The upheaval lands as Premier David Eby weighs calling a vote well before British Columbia’s fixed election date in October 2028. Provincial law sets that date as a default, not a ceiling. The premier can still ask the Lieutenant Governor to dissolve the legislature early, triggering a minimum 28-day campaign. Eby has told his caucus the NDP is “election ready,” a posture that carries more weight since the death of MLA Joan Phillip in August left the governing party with a one-seat majority in the 93-seat legislature. That razor-thin margin, not just the Conservative implosion, is what makes an early call plausible: a single lost confidence vote could put Eby’s government at risk without one.
The B.C. Green Party has argued a snap election would overshadow roughly 160 municipal races already scheduled for the fall, the Victoria Times Colonist reported. No interim Conservative leader had been named as of Sunday evening, and the party has not said when it will choose a permanent replacement for Findlay, who held the job for less than four months.
via The Canadian Press, with additional reporting from CBC News, CTV News, Global News and The Tyee. Read the original Canadian Press wire report at pentictonherald.ca.
